Over the past two trading days, we have seen USD/SEK and EUR/SEK fall sharply twice on Monday and shortly after 09:00 GMT on Tuesday. Today we will be keeping a close eye on similar moves in this session as this could be a signal for the Riksbank to conduct its daily selling operations during this morning session.
The Riksbank stressed that this was not a foreign exchange intervention or monetary policy tool, but simply risk management. The lack of transparency in weekly selling volumes meant that the Riksbank could sell larger amounts of currency at higher levels in USD/SEK and EUR/SEK and then justify this as just a loss minimization method (when SEK was cheaper Buy more SEK).
We still think there is some upside risk in USD/SEK and EUR/SEK in the near term, especially as markets adjust to the Swedish Riksbank’s presence in FX markets, although holding SEK now against other high-beta procyclical currencies such as NOK ) is certainly valuable.